


Amortentia (or How Charlie Weasley Came Out)

by gaydio



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: :)) all smileys, Acceptance, Attempt at humour, Background Relationship, Bullying, Comedy, Coming Out, Fluffy, Gay Character, Gay Charlie Weasley, Gay Male Character, Gen, HA HA !! HA !! classic comedy, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, LGBT, M/M, Violence, from the people who matter anyway, happy fic, hinted relationship, physical bullying, this is a coming out fic, warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 00:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17928953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaydio/pseuds/gaydio
Summary: In the space of almost two weeks, Charlie had gone from a gay, closeted virgin to a gay closeted virgin with no friends, plenty of bruises and a rumoured straight crush. It was fair to say his life had slipped mildly downhill, and with only two weeks away from Christmas break. Soon enough, his parents would find out about his 'crush' and they'd send him an owl, detailing their pride that Charlie would have to inevitably demolish as he told them he likes men.___Charlie Weasley has to come out to his parents this very Christmas if he wants to have chances of getting a boyfriend any time soon. He hits a few hurdles along the way.





	Amortentia (or How Charlie Weasley Came Out)

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy :))

Charlie had one month. 

He had approximately one month to go of Hogwarts before he had to head home for Christmas with Percy, Fred and George in tow and face his entire family. To be completely honest, he was one-hundred percent okay with that, and he always looked forward to seeing his whole family, especially Bill and Ginny (though he would never say that to the rest of his family. He loved them all). But this one time, Christmas was different, mostly because Charlie had incessantly gotten it in his dumb head that he wanted to finally come out to his family, and specifically his parents, this very upcoming Christmas. 

Charlie had figured out he was gay perhaps four years ago, at the (tender) age of twelve. He'd gotten his letter at eleven as usual but seeing as his birthday was in December he'd been unable to join in to the school year that had just started previous and had to wait relentlessly for nine months or so before he could also go and join Hogwarts, like Bill had two years previous. He'd turned twelve only a few months into his first year, and he'd started to very quickly notice that his attention very rarely shifted to girls in his classes, and never in a romantic type way. That, obviously, had been his first clue. That would have tipped anyone off. It was perhaps a year later that he fully realised, as his classmates and friends started being interested in girls and boys, his best friend Tonks was quite often making gooey eyes at some boy in their class and Bill finally got his first girlfriend at fifteen, with the relevant ease and coolness that Bill tended to have when doing anything. When Charlie had questioned him about it, Bill had ruffled Charlie's hair (in the way that Charlie pretended he hated) and laughed, told him he'd probably find a girlfriend as well at some point. Probably. However unappealing the prospect had been at the time paled in comparison to how unappealing it seemed another year on, when girls were asking him out left and right after he'd landed himself a position as seeker for the quidditch team, a position which seemed to attract a lot of traction in the way of girls. 

And Charlie liked none of them. 

Boys, however. The more he thought about it, the more he agreed with the mad ramblings that Tonks went on about the latest boy she was interested in. Yes, he did have really nice eyes. Yes, you're right Tonks, his laugh sounded like a heavenly bell of Jesus himself. You're so correct, his body was like a greek god's. 

And of course, in such fashion as people were beginning to expect of Charlie, he kept quiet about it and continued to talk about dragons, and quidditch, and everything else other than the big 'secret' that he'd grown to keep after a few years. He'd had very rare 'encounters' with other boys, mostly some snuck away kisses that he hadn't told anyone about. He'd never needed to worry about being outed by the boys he'd snogged occasionally, as no one in the whole bloody castle was ready to come out, and it was the unspoken rule that if someone was to rat on someone else, they'd get ratted on as well. 

So that was how Charlie Weasley, at the edge of seventeen, ended up a gay, closeted virgin while simultaneously being aware of probably ninety percent of Hogwarts' also gay, closeted virgin population. 

It was a sad existence, and Charlie often jerked off in his dorm thinking about how great it would be if he could just be out of the closet and have a boyfriend and kiss his boyfriend and fuck his boyfriend (or get fucked by his boyfriend, he entertained both ideas quite vividly) and-jesus fucking Christ-he could go for having a boyfriend. Fred and George would finally shut up about him not wanting a girlfriend as well. What did they know, bloody eleven year olds.

So, end of August, Charlie had sat on his bed in his room, Bill snoring away on the other side of the room, and thought to himself, deeply. Looked at his ceiling and sighed, stared out the window, the whole bloody drama of it. And he'd decided that one term, just until Christmas, was enough prep time to drop the bomb on his family, right? The big, gay bomb. And how soon after could he even get a boyfriend? Where would he even find one? No one in Hogwarts was very keen on coming out any time soon, the ones he knew about at least. 

Maybe he was jumping the gun a little bit. Regardless, the first bit was telling Tonks, maybe Penny and Barnaby as well, just so he could get their advice on how to best drop this all on his family. But that, painstakingly, also involved coming out to his friends, and that in itself was a whole other hurdle. Maybe it was dwarfed in the comparison of the giant, towering hurdle that was his parents' acceptance, but a hurdle none the less. And Charlie was stupidly bad at running while jumping. It was a problem. There was not enough coordination in his limbs to make the leap. Or that's what he told himself as an excuse as the two first months had slid by, getting into the flow of school, then later the Quidditch season in November, and then it was almost December and he was still as closeted as he had been when he was thirteen and drooling over Mason Long from Slytherin still. 

Charlie found himself with his nose stuck in his potions book, hiding from Snape and the looking eyes of Betty White simultaneously. Betty was a girl that'd had a slight obsession with him since year five, and now in their senior year seemed intent on continuing on with it. Snape had noticed it plenty of times and did not miss his opportunity to mock both her and Charlie for the attraction, telling Charlie many times to finally ask her out so he doesn't have to listen to her yelling about him anymore. What an asshole. Charlie avoided saying anything during potions, thankfully the only class that he had with Snape and Betty both. 

Keeping his head down was something he was good at, naturally the silent type unless someone asked him to talk about dragons or something similar. Especially in classes like these, where he disliked the majority of the class and had basically no friends whatsoever. 

"As previously mentioned, amortentia takes a different smell for each individual person, taking on the smell of something the person likes-" 

They were learning about amortentia. A lesson usually learnt in the sixth year, but one that they'd had to move to the seventh after a dragon pox outbreak that took over the school for a week and had many people transferred to Saint Mungo's. Happened to be the week in which amortentia was planned to be learned, and Snape, ever sticking to his schedule, didn't want to go back and do it in the time that he was supposed to be doing other stuff, therefore arranged with Dumbledore to have it moved to a week of year seven in which they'd normally be doing revision material. Snape hadn't cut anyone slack about how they'd been technically 'bad students' for catching the pox and making his schedule fall behind. No sympathy whatsoever. 

Charlie hasn't really been paying attention to Snape making the potion as a demonstration, his nose stuck in his book where he continued to pretend to read about it instead. He'd floated back into the room after Snape had said, louder than before it seemed. 

"Now that the presentation is complete, why don't we have some testing? Ms. White, why don't you come up and tell us what the potion smells like?" Snape sneered at Betty, a dirty smirk on his face, and Charlie groaned inwardly as Betty blushed and nodded to the professor, dragging herself to the front under the scrutiny of their classmates. 

As the class observed, some still snickering, Betty leaned in close and took a small whiff of the scent that the pearl-esque liquid exuded, her face contorting a little as she discerned the scents. 

"Well, Ms White?" Snape pushed her onward. Charlie heard Blake Movinski laugh with his jolly group of bullies in the back of the classroom, before Betty could even say anything. Charlie's blood boiled as Snape seemed content to further embarrass Betty.

"It... It smells like pumpkin pasties, grass... and honeysuckle." Betty answered honestly, and Charlie's face burned as he felt a few people's gazes on himself. He was sure he was as red as his hair. The smell described fit the description of the Burrow quite perfectly, sans for the pasties, and it was a smell that had many times before also been associated to Charlie. He fought the urge to turn around and punch Blake, who was laughing his head off. Snape smirked as Betty went and sat down, almost as red as Charlie himself. 

"Well then, speaking of," Snape sneered once more, "Mr Weasley? Why don't you come and tell us what you can smell?"

"Playing matchmaker, Snape?" Charlie couldn't fight off the urge to snap at Snape, who didn't seem bothered by it, especially since it showed him that Charlie was cracking under the pressure. Charlie cursed himself for his stupidity. He should have a stronger resolve than that. But his blood was still boiling.

"Ten points from Gryffindor. That's professor to you," Snape said with his ugly leer, "Now, come up here, Mr Weasley."

"You'd think with a nose like that you could take a bloody whiff for yourself..." Charlie almost shouted, his face contorted with anger. Snape's shifted as well, but he was a master at hiding his emotions in the first place.

"Another ten points from Gryffindor. Do you want detention, Mr Weasley?"

Charlie honestly would have rather had the detention at that point, but he'd already had two, mostly because of Tonks, and if he landed himself in detention for the third time in a term, his mother would most definitely find out about it. And imagine coming out to your mother while she's in hysterics about how you're ruining your future by being a troublemaker.

He dragged himself out of his seat and walked carefully past desks, making sure no one had stuck a foot out to trip him (which had happened more than once) as he made his way over to the potion. Gods, he wished he could dip Snape's face into it just to watch him squirm. Mildly violent thoughts aside, he slowly leant in and inhaled, a smell permeating from the potion that at first he could not place, only after a few seconds, as if the smell formed after breaching his lungs, did he realise what it was. 

It smelt of wood, like the smell of his Quidditch broom, and a smell that he could place as dragon fire, though it just smelt like normal fire to him, since he hadn't seen an actual dragon yet. The third scent was distinctly like the smell of home, a little bit like his mum's cooking and maybe like Bill's hair weirdly enough, maybe Ron's, but then the fourth smell made a blush rise to his face, as he realised it was a tensely muscular scent, one he'd recognised from hugging his teammates after a game of Quidditch, most of them male. He wasn't attracted to any of them past the physical, but if he wanted to imagine what manliness smelt like, this would probably be it. Musky and sweaty. His heart dropped out his arse at the thought of saying that out loud to Snape and his class. 

"Well, Mr Weasley?" Snape pushed, and Charlie's brain panicked. He had to think of something that smelt like woman, quickly, lest the potion did the outing for him. The only woman he could think of in that moment was Penny, and she always smelt like cinnamon. Better than Tonks, who herself didn't tend to smell very womanly. 

"It smells like home, and like wood and fire, professor," Charlie said, "And like cinnamon." 

Cinnamon was perfectly womanly, right? Not like man at all. Charlie did not know a single man who smelt of cinnamon. If Snape realised he had hesitated a second too long before saying it, he didn't say anything, and Charlie was allowed back to his seat. He realised what a terrible fucking mistake he'd made only after he realised that the rest of the class was gaping at him. 

What an idiot. Says cinnamon as if Penny isn't the most popular girl in school and very famously smells of cinnamon. She'd talked for ages about her cinnamon perfume on the very first day of school, and since then she was very well associated with the smell. Blake shouted at him from the back of the class. 

"Want to fuck Haywood, do ya?" Blake shouted, and the class laughed. 

"Silence, Movinski." Snape finally did his job, but Charlie felt nothing but pure resentment towards him still. Fucking Snape. Now Blake and the rest of the year level (and school) would think he was crushing on Penny. He'd better talk to her, fast. 

There was nothing he dreaded more.

___

So, turned out Charlie was not only very good at not jumping over hurdles, he was also very good at avoiding his problems and digging himself into dumb, dark, avoidable holes. 

In short, a week had passed since the dreaded amortentia lesson, and the whole school knew about how he allegedly liked Penny Haywood. And, coincidentally but in an unrelated fashion, he hadn't spoken to any of his friends in a week. 

He had avoided Tonks and had spoken to her very briefly, he'd not talked to Barnaby at all, and he had run away at any sight of Penny. He'd gone as far as to fake sick from any classes he'd had with her so he didn't have to look her in the fucking eye. Why was this his life. 

This whole thing would be over if he could just stand in front of his friends and tell them about how much he loved cock. It would be that easy. But the fact that he couldn't even tell his friends about it showed how much more difficult it would be to tell his parents, and now he would definitely have to, considering Percy, Fred and George had all also heard about his 'crush' on Penny, and hadn't stopped bothering him about it. 

"Wonder what mum will say, I do, don't you George?"

"Oh, I do, Fred!"

"Don't you dare tell mum and dad, you two!" Charlie had shouted in an exasperated fashion, his words falling on deaf ears as Fred and George giggled at each other. Percy was reading a book, but his eyes kept shooting up to look at his brothers. 

"I think she deserves to know, mum. She's been worried about you not having any crushes, you know." Percy said from behind his book and Charlie felt it through his chest like the stab of a murderous traitor. Might as well have beat me to death with your book, Perce.

"Not you too, Percy..." Charlie whined, his face red as he hid it in his hands. 

"See! Even Percy agrees with us, doesn't he Fred?"

"He sure does, George!"

"And anyway," Percy continued, all the professionality that did not fit into the conversation at all, "I can't really blame you. Penny Haywood is..." He blushed, trying to find a word that wasn't crude. The twins beat him to it.

"She's hot!" Fred said, and George nodded along with him. Charlie blanched and felt light headed.

"You're eleven! You should be thinking about anything other than women right now!" Charlie screeched, and he knew his face was just about purple at this point from how embarrassed he was. The rest of his body did not have any blood left in it anymore, surely. 

"When are you going to take her out?" George asked him, and Charlie thought he may just beat himself with Percy's book instead and rid himself of all this.

"On a date, with a killing curse..?" Fred joked, and they both laughed about it. Charlie honestly felt faint.

"I think I'm going to pass out before I can ask anyone out." He said, almost too honestly, and Percy rolled his eyes.

"Come on, let's leave Charlie alone to stew on this. I'm sure he'll ask her out eventually." Percy said, and somehow, surprisingly, the twins followed him out of Charlie's quarters, leaving him to sprawl on the bed, the colour finally fading from his face as he dreaded the days to come. 

All of a sudden, the thought of Percy or Fred and George having already told his parents crossed his mind, and he sat up in a hurry to get his jumper on and head to the owlery. His parents would undoubtedly have defied the laws of time by now to send him an owl if they'd heard. 

He rushed to the owlery and once again ignored the glances of everyone else around him. How could he still be the talk of the school a week on? Did nothing else happen in this usually drama filled school?

Charlie entered to the familiar smell of owl droppings and thankfully found the space quite empty, sans the owls obviously. He gulped to see Erol there, the family owl, with two letters tied to his left leg, obviously waiting to either have them be picked up as Charlie was doing or to drop them at breakfast the next day. Charlie gulped and grabbed some feed from a nearby box, approaching Erol and giving him some, patting his head and cooing at him before he untied the first letter from the owl's leg, opening it with dread in his gut. 

It wasn't from his parents. In fact, it was much weirder than that, an unsigned letter that said, simply:

"Meet me at the corridor outside the potions classroom tonight at two. Don't be late." 

Charlie's eyebrows quirked. Someone wanted to talk to him. But who? Clearly someone who didn't want to be identified, seeing as they'd gone through the trouble of tying this to the owl's leg, knowing as well that Charlie would be checking it before breakfast. He racked his brain. This could be anyone, it could most definitely be Penny, it could be any of the other gay guys in the school that knew about him. This person also almost definitely knew that he had prefect duties, though in another part of the school, and could definitely get himself there with little hassle. The best he could do was drag himself to the meeting and see.

The other letter was from his parents, but it mentioned nothing about Penny, so Charlie was inclined to believe they didn't know yet. He put them both in his pocket and let Erol fly away, taking himself back to his room, staring ahead with blank eyes. He reminded himself that he wouldn't be sleeping for long tonight, and so, early as it was, he got himself in bed and fell asleep, waiting for the time to come for his patrolling. He would have to stick around after that as well, so he was glad to be getting some sleep. He had Quidditch tomorrow. 

It was the beginning of his shift, almost, when he got himself up and made his way to the meet up, getting a corridor assigned and making his way there, his eyes bleary with the nap he'd had just before but his heart still beating anxiously in regard to the meeting. 

After he'd been left to stew in his almost dreamscape of the Hogwarts silent and empty corridors, his shift was finally over, and he'd said goodbye to the other prefects and made to apparently go to his rooms, lagging behind the others and instead making his way to the corridor in front of potions, where the Hufflepuff and Slytherin common rooms were. Thankfully, the portraits around him were mostly quiet and asleep, so he got no trouble for being up. Once he made it, he nervously did up his hair again, a little knot of red at the back of his head, and then fiddled with his badges. 

"Charlie?" He heard a voice whisper behind him, and turning around he found himself facing Victor Bell, a Hufflepuff that he had had impromptu make out sessions with many times before. Victor had dark skin, his hair wild and frizzy but trimmed quite neatly, with dark brown eyes like two drops of dark chocolate. He was tall and quite fit, from the Quidditch, his face slimmed out with high cheekbones and full lips. He had his Head Boy badge on. Right. Charlie's face went red again.

"Victor." He said, softly.

"I'll be quick about this. I just wanted to ask, what's this about you apparently having a fancy for Penny? I just honestly thought-" His face seemed almost jealous, and Charlie barely had the moment to be proud of the expression.

"No, No!" Charlie had to stop himself from actually just laying down on the ground and screaming in frustration. The guy he'd made out with multiple times was doubting his gayness. By god. "It was amortfgentia!"

Victor looked at him with a dead face "She... gave you the most powerful love potion known to mankind?"

Charlie huffed as his eyes widened "No, Christ no. we were studying it in class and stupid Snape went ahead and made me say what it smelt like! I couldn't tell him what it actually smelt like, lest I fancied telling Snape I like dick, so I had to come up with something else on the spot.." Charlie looked to the ground as he finished saying that.

Victor looked quite sorry for him, which Charlie supposed was better than looking angry.

"Christ, alright," He said "I'm sorry, mate. I just thought-"

"No, yeah, I wouldn't want you to think that. I'm glad you asked me." Charlie looked up and smiled at him with as much strength as he had in him. 

Victor smiled back at him, and Charlie found himself leaning into a hug that he hadn't really expected. Charlie's head went against Victor's shoulder, a deep, contented sigh in his lungs. He'd needed someone to talk to about this. Someone to be himself to. He really was glad that Victor had set up this meeting. He went to pull away from him, but just as he did, he heard a muttering of lumos from nearby, and suddenly their embrace was lit up, and Blake's smirking face came into view. 

"Well, well.." Blake started, his smile almost predatory. Charlie flinched away from Victor, who did the same, but their moment could not have been mistaken as heterosexual. And depending on how long Blake had been around for, Charlie may have already incriminated himself. 

"Penny Haywood, yeah?" Blake chuckled. Charlie's lungs and stomach were on fire. 

___

Charlie was being blackmailed, plain and simple. Blake had continually poked fun at him for the rest of the week with no will to relent in sight, and the unspoken threat that if Charlie were to defend himself, as he usually did, his secret would be out. Victor had not faced a similar treatment, mostly because Blake knew messing with Victor's family was trouble. They were quite influential, and he'd be doing himself more harm than good by talking smack about Victor or upsetting him in any way.

Victor had met up with Charlie again a few days after and apologised for the fact that Charlie was not getting the same merciful treatment, but Charlie had brushed him off. It wasn't Victor's fault at all, after all. And Victor couldn't risk defending him either, both their hands were tied. It was all stupid Blake's fault. 

Blake's treatment of Charlie, or rather mistreatment, took a turn for the worst in pushing in the corridors, name calling (and more specific name calling in more private situations) and even going as far as to steal Charlie's wand for a whole day. And Charlie could not do anything in return for fear of being outed. Not for the first time in the past few years he wished Bill were there. Bill would always know what to do in any situation. His younger siblings were confused and defensive, which was quite flattering, but none of them were in a situation where they could help, and Charlie had explicitly warned them not to get involved anyway. He wouldn't be able to forgive himself if his siblings got caught up in all of that as well. Blake would get over it eventually. And anyway, when Charlie came out he wouldn't have to worry about it at all. But the problem was that now his friends were angry at him for not talking to them, especially Tonks, who seemed to take it quite more personally than everyone else and huff at him whenever he crossed her in the corridors. 

In the space of almost two weeks, Charlie had gone from a gay, closeted virgin to a gay closeted virgin with no friends, plenty of bruises and a rumoured straight crush. It was fair to say his life had slipped mildly downhill, and with only two weeks away from Christmas break. Soon enough, his parents would find out about his 'crush' and they'd send him an owl, detailing their pride that Charlie would have to inevitably demolish as he told them he likes men.

It came to a head only a week after Blake had found out, a few days away from Charlie's birthday, when Blake confronted Charlie during Charlie's night shift in his usual corridor. He had two friends with him, Jacob and Thomas. Jacob was a Slytherin and Thomas a Ravenclaw, and Charlie could only assume they'd found out about his preferences through Blake. Ηe'd been wondering his corridors and doing his job as usual when a voice was heard and Charlie turned around to face Blake's ice cold eyes.

"Weasley." Blake muttered smugly, Charlie was sure his eyes betrayed both anger and fear at having been bothered by Blake again. He was by himself and Blake overpowered him by a mile, even if he didn't have his buddies. This was a potential problem. Charlie didn't want to admit he was scared.

"What are you three doing out? You're supposed to be in your dorm, you're not allowed-"

"Yeah, whatever, thought my little friend could get us a free pass just for this time." Blake said in a degrading way, and Charlie's face burned a hard red. Jacob and Thomas laughed as if on cue, multiplying Charlie's embarrassment. He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to seem imposing. 

"What the hell do you want from me, Blake?" He asked, his words sharp and annoyed, which Blake didn't seem to like. He didn't address the other two.

"I'd watch my tone and show some respect if I were you," Blake offered as if it was tangible advice. "Wouldn't want the whole school to know your secret, much less out of my mouth, would you?" Blake said, and Charlie was pained to think of how correct he was.

"Because I could play it up as well," Blake snickered, and Charlie's face had the gall to betray him by looking scared. "How easy would it be to say the shirt lifter cornered me in the hall way and tried to make a pass at me?"

Charlie felt shame burn inside him. He would never do something like that. Blake must have sensed that Charlie was embarrassed, because he kept going.

"Then you'd get kicked out of the school and probably end up like that hairy giant you like so much-"

"Hey, don't talk that way about Hagrid!" Charlie was shocked at how defensive he felt over Hagrid being talked about in such an abusive manner. Hagrid was seven hundred times the person that Blake was. Literally and figuratively. 

"Oh, right, my bad, maybe you'll end up like your blood traitor mother instead. Taking care of a bunch of low life kids for your husband-" The way he made it sound, so low and dirty, made Charlie snap. Blake was cut off with a fist to his face, a groan leaving his lips as soon as the fist made contact with him. 

Jacob and Thomas were on him immediately, all of them opting for fists over wands, as per the trend that Charlie had started when he punched Blake. Charlie fought to land another couple of hits, but knew he was severely overpowered and bound to fail. He didn't mind, he was so blinded by rage. Blake dared trash talk Charlie's own mother in front of him, he would make Blake eat his own fucking teeth. 

Charlie took a few hits to the face and stomach, doubling over and seeing stars. He'd felt Jacob and Thomas grab his arms, holding him back so that Blake could lay a few more punches on his stomach and face, before an almost pleasant cough was heard from behind them, a wand tossing Blake and his group away from Charlie, who fell on the ground on his knees and spat out blood from his mouth onto the floor when he found it was filling with red. 

"Movinski, take your friends and go to your common room. You too, Mr Singer, go to your common room." The voice spoke, and Charlie groaned inwardly. Of all the teachers, it had to be Snape to find him like this. Beaten and bloodied with the fucking smuggest slytherins and ravenclaw standing around him. One of them muttered something dirty about Charlie being on his knees and Charlie receded further into himself. He felt something like tears well up in his eyes and he hoped they were hidden. He just wanted to lie down in his own blood and cry. 

Footsteps sounded down the corridor, Movinski leaving with Thomas and Jacob. Charlie didn't look up, knowing he looked a right mess, even if he knew that Snape was still there, looking at him.

"Get up, Weasley." His voice, as if by magic, was the gentlest that Charlie had ever heard it. "You're going to the principal first. Then Ms Pomfrey."

Charlie didn't know how to argue anymore. His head was spinning, and his blood was dripping down his nose and to the cold floor beneath him. His robes had blood on them now. He had no strength to stop his own obedience to Snape's command. 

___

Dumbledore's office was as queer (could he use that word? He didn't know) as he remembered it from other times he'd been there, which had been only once, with Tonks at his side, for repeated offences in the name of demeaning the Slytherins. They'd gotten off fairly well, and Charlie remembered very vividly that he was not afraid. Whilst Snape's office (and rest assured he had spent a lot of time there before) was cold and scary, Dumbledore's office, while not having anything specifically warm of welcoming inside it, just exuded a welcoming and relaxing energy. Charlie wondered if it was a spell, at first. Later he figured it was just Dumbledore being Dumbledore. 

He wasn't there at first, and Charlie had been taken there by Snape, given the password and forced to wait for the headmaster while sitting on the chair in front of Dumbledore's desk. He felt incredible guilt, knowing Dumbledore would have to be woken up for this. He was picking at the blood that had dried on his shirt, knowing there was a dried stream just like it beneath his nose, when the door opened behind him and Dumbledore walked in. Charlie immediately stood himself up, looking back and facing the headmaster with shame on his face.

"Professor! I'm very sorry to-"

"Nothing to worry about, Mr Weasley." Dumbledore said in such a way that made Charlie sit down in his chair again hesitantly, his cheeks slightly red, and shut his mouth. 

Dumbledore sat behind his desk, looking at Charlie directly, who avoided his gaze. There was a silence for what felt like a lifetime, until Dumbledore finally spoke up. 

"So," Dumbledore said, "Would you like a lemon drop?" 

Charlie did a double take on the headmaster and blinked a few times.

"No, thank you. I don't think I could stomach something right now." He pointed out honestly, thinking about his bruised stomach. His insides felt jumbled. 

"Ah, right," Dumbledore said in a tone that sounded like he totally did understand, "The problem with Mr Movinski and his friends. Would you mind telling me what happened, Mr Weasley?"

Dumbledore's tone was so kind that Charlie felt almost empowered and urged in the moment to spit out the whole truth and get Movinski in huge trouble. But could he really? Could he really stand the whole school finding out the truth from that motherfucker? He knew that if he got Blake in trouble, that was what would happen. 

He looked down in his lap, "Just a row. Blake never did like me much."

Dumbledore nodded and looked thoughtful for a second. "And you don't think there was a reason other than Mr Movinski's dislike for you for this attack? It did seem rather..." planned, was what he was going to say, Charlie was sure of it. But he, thankfully, didn't, so Charlie could play dumb and not have to explain everything after all. 

"No, no, I don't think so. And I don't think it should be made a big deal out of, Blake will leave me alone, just don't get him in trouble, please." Charlie said, and he wasn't sure how convincing he was being, but he just wanted Dumbledore to drop it. 

There was another silence, and Charlie dared look up from his lap to see Dumbledore and judge his reaction to Charlie's lie. Dumbledore, to Charlie's surprise, was smiling at him widely, almost in an encouraging fashion. Suddenly, Dumbledore put his hands on the desk in front of him and stood up, to see Charlie off it seemed. 

"Well, if it was just a one-time thing, as you say Mr Weasley, I will trust you. Mr Movinski will not be punished this time. But rest assured that if I catch a hint of this happening again, Mr Movinski will be punished before I consult you, Mr Weasley." Charlie let out the nervous breath he was holding in. That gave him some time. "And you're free to go get your wounds treated with Madam Pomfrey. I wouldn't want to hold you up. You don't look in the best state currently."

Charlie smiled back at him, a frail, nervous smile, but he stood up as well. Just as he was about to turn and leave, with Dumbledore's wise blue eyes on him again, Dumbledore spoke. 

"You know, Mr Weasley," He said, a contemplative look on his face, "During my time at this very school, I found that the greatest solace came in the form of my friends." Charlie felt a wave of embarrassment run through him. The comment was much too direct to be some good natured random advice. 

"You'd be surprised how much a friend can help you find yourself." Dumbledore said, and the positive smile came over his face once again. Charlie felt like his blue eyes were digging into his very soul, and there was something very knowing about Dumbledore's look. His words struck close to home. 

He nodded at him, simply, and walked out, going to the hospital wing to have Madam Pomfrey fix his bloodied face up. It hurt to walk, his stomach in pain from the punches, but it hurt more to think about Dumbledore's words, and his friends. School was lonely without them. The castle too big for him to not feel lonely without them. Especially Tonks. 

From the hospital wing, he wrote three letters, to Barnaby, Tonks and Penny. The next day, when Pomfrey let him out, he went to the owlery and tied the letters to the respective owls. It was Saturday. His birthday was very, very soon. He hoped that was enough of an excuse for his friends to forget their anger a little earlier than they'd normally would. Not that Charlie was going to use excuses and lies. He'd done that already and it hadn't gotten him very far. All he had to do then was wait at the tree in front of the Black Lake, as he'd said he would, and hope that they'd all show up and hear him out. 

___

 

They all did. And Charlie wasn't sure how he ever doubted them. They were his friends. And it was time to come clean. 

Tonks looked like she wanted to be angry with him, like she'd told herself to be angry right before showing up to this meeting. Like she had to remind herself to be angry at him. Charlie only knew as such because the second she spotted the bruises on his face she seemed to drop all pretence of being cross at him. Which made him guilty and happy at the same time. 

Barnaby seemed equally concerned about him but less forthcoming about it, and so did Penny. Actually, Penny just looked confused. Unsure. Like she wasn't sure what to make of the situation. So while Tonks had pounced on him like the actualisation of his mother, conjured right before him and bursting with worry, Barnaby and Penny had sat back and watched with confused, concerned looks. 

"Charlie!" Tonks had shouted, and Charlie had immediately gone red. He hated how much he was doing that lately. 

"Tonks, Penny, Barnaby-"He was getting ready to go into his planned rant, explanation and apology when Tonks cut him off and ran over to grab him by the jaw and force him to look up so she could see the damage.

"What happened to you!" She shouted more than asked, Charlie stammering. 

"Charlie, what's been going on?" Penny asked, her tone so serious, anger and disappointment hinted inside it, that even Tonks stopped fussing and slowly dropped Charlie's face, giving him a slight smile, but the look in her eyes still held questions.

"I-" Charlie started, but Penny didn't seem to be done talking, and neither did Barnaby.

"You've been acting really weird lately.. and now this." Barnaby said, and Charlie was happy to hear concern in his voice at least. 

"And if this has something to do with the amortentia thing..." Penny started, but Charlie cut her off quickly to save himself the embarrassment, his heart hammering wildly in his chest. He didn't want to even meet her bloody eye, by god. 

"Please listen to me and let me explain." He said, and a silence fell over his group of friends, who all crossed their arms and gave him attentive looks. 

Charlie sighed and took a deep breath, his eyes shutting momentarily to get his thoughts together and get a grasp back on his original speech, which he had prepared beforehand. The words didn't flow to him, however, and with another nervous sigh, and the impatient looks from his friends, he was forced to freestyle. 

"I... haven't been very truthful with you all about something." He said and could tell that Tonks was refraining from throwing some very choice words at him because of his blasé introduction. He put his arms up as if to subdue her, and she actually listened to him. 

"There's something I've been keeping from you that I meant to tell you, I swear, I've been building up to it, but then the lesson with Snape happened and that slimy git got involved and I was forced to say some things that made things really awkward for me and-" 

"Charlie, just tell us what happened at the lesson." Penny offered when she saw that Charlie was struggling to get himself actually started. 

"Yes. Right. Okay," Charlie huffed. "What happened was, we were doing a lesson on amortentia, and stupid Snape asked me to come up and give it a whiff, right?" They all nodded at him when he asked for actual confirmation, "And I.. I didn't want to tell him what I actually smelt, so I said that I smelt cinnamon, because it was the first thing that came to mind. And obviously..." He shot a nervous look to Penny, who didn't seem any more or less angry than she did before.

"Okay... so why didn't you just tell me that? Instead of ignoring me and all of us?" Penny said, an accusing tone in her voice that made Charlie honestly want to curl up in a terrible ball. 

"Because I knew that if I told you that I'd have to come clean about what I actually smelt as well, and that was the thing that I've kind of been keeping from you, so I thought maybe it was better to just avoid it all together, which now in retrospect was a bad idea..." he trailed off, and the expectant look he got from Penny especially, but the others as well, had him quaking. 

"Well I," his breath sounded shuddery when he let it out, "I like men. And the amortentia didn't let me hide that very conveniently, so I had to lie to Snape."

There was a silence, and Charlie held his breath while listening out for the shimmering of the lake water, the slightly chilly wind brushing past him, the hubbub of students laughing nearby. The silence felt like it lasted for an entire eternity, but it actually didn't last nearly as long. And Barnaby spoke up first. 

"Oh. Like gay?" He asked, and Charlie's heart sank. That didn't sound that positive. 

"Yeah." He admitted, guilty at the shame in his voice. He shouldn't be shameful. How could he expect them to accept him when he was shameful himself?

"Oh! Well, you could have just told us." Tonks said, a small smile on her face when she realised how upset Charlie looked.

"Yes, it would have served as a better explanation than not having one at all.." Barnaby said. Charlie smiled at them and cast his eyes nervously to Penny, who still hadn't spoken. 

"I don't want to give into stereotypes and say I didn't see it coming, but I really didn't see it coming." She finally said, but there was nothing hostile in her tone, so finally, FINALLY, with the euphoria floating in his mind, Charlie let out a large breath and smiled widely, truly. 

"How? I never talk about girls, ever..." Charlie said with a small laugh, and his friends giggled with him, mostly out of thankfulness to have the tense atmosphere fade. 

"I just thought you were very secretive about your crushes. And then the whole thing with Penny.. It just didn't occur to me." Tonks said. "But you know it's okay, right? It's not a big deal, you didn't need to even 'come out' to us like this." She said, and Charlie saw her point. He could have just brought up a crush of his or whatever and things would have been the same. But he'd built up the strength to do this over so long that it felt almost like a letdown. To bring up something so important to him in such a mild manner. 

"I know. I just needed to work up the strength. And with the way things happened as well..." He trailed off again and his friends just nodded. "And I'm sorry... for cutting you off and lying and not telling you. I was just scared."

"It's okay, Charlie." Penny smiled at him, "I'm just glad it got sorted out. But I hope you'll know to trust us next time, if something like this happens again. You know we're here for you." Charlie positively beamed. 

"But wait, what happened with your face?" Barnaby asked, and suddenly, as soon as the subject was brought up again (and now that Penny wasn't angry at him anymore) Charlie had three fretting mothers instead of one. 

"Oh, this-" Charlie absentmindedly touched his face, feeling the roughness of the skin beneath his fingers, "It was Blake. He cornered me during my shift last night. He'd found out about me about a week ago, he walked in on a bit of a-" he blushed a bit, "Moment that I was having with someone and drew the correct conclusion. He and his friends decided I was a nice punching bag." He chuckled nervously.

"Fucks sake." Barnaby seethed. "That guy is trouble. I can't believe that I used to be friends with him." 

Tonks was positively seething with rage and Charlie had to remind her not to do anything bad at some point, possibly remind her she couldn't afford another detention. Penny just looked at him almost sadly, and it made him feel even guiltier to not have told them about Blake bothering him in the past week, to not have allowed them to help when they were clearly concerned about him. 

"It's okay," He rushed to say, "Now that I've told you I can tell him to back off. I don't care who else knows, now that I know you guys are okay with it." He smiled at them happily, and it was the truth. He had only ever really cared about the people he cared about accepting him, like his family, and now that he had the help of his friends he could tell them as well and come back from Christmas break without caring about Blake. "But I need to tell my family first, or Percy, Fred and George will find out from him. By the way, I need your help with that."

"To tell your family?" questioned Penny, "Well, what about it is there that you need help with?"

"I don't know, I just have general questions on how to break it to them. But we can talk about that later. I don't want to think about it and stress out right now. Just promise me you won't lash out at Blake until I get this sorted?" He begged, a slight tone of desperation in his voice. He mostly was looking at Tonks when he said it. 

She sighed, realising she was the prime suspect of losing her temper. "I'll keep it in my pants for now. And by 'it' I mean the dungbomb that's going to get shoved in his robes as soon as humanly possible after your family knows." She said with a small smile and Charlie laughed. 

They all sat down around the tree and looked at the lake, smiles on their faces, happy to have made up and be able to put the whole thing behind them. 

Penny suddenly spoke up, something like a dirty smile on her face. 

"Wait a second, you said Blake 'walked in on you at a moment' of some sort..." She pointed out and Barnaby and Tonks loudly affirmed this, saying things like 'yeah you did say that' in a mocking fashion, as if Charlie could forget he had to say those words. His face went red as a tomato and he was sure it was beginning to be a bit of a common occurrence, this look for him. 

"Well..." He said nervously, "I don't think I can tell you the name of the guy. He's in the closet as well. But we used to meet outside of curfew and...well." He didn't finish the sentence immediately, giving a nonchalant shrug to his friends. "Nothing 'not safe for work' but you know."

"No, I really do not, you may need to go in further detail." Tonks said with a mocking waggle of her eyebrows, and they all laughed. 

Charlie harder than them. It was so good to be open with them about this now. He was sure he'd opened another chapter of his life, one where he could be more open, this time around. It felt better than anything. It made him want to go up to Blake and punch him straight on the nose. 

___

He'd sat with Tonks and Rowan on the way home on the train. Penny and Barnaby were staying at Hogwarts for Christmas, and so was Ben. He'd told Rowan on the train, much more casually than he had the others, and he'd once again had a positive and heartening reaction. It made him feel good about coming out to his parents, his family. But in the back of his mind, he remembered Blake's reaction. What if one of his siblings reacted the way that he had, and their close relationship was lost forever? He'd tried not to think about it too much as he talked out his nervousness on the train with his friends.

Being able to be out by his seventeenth birthday was better than he'd ever even imagined and being able to talk about his encounters with boys (without outing anyone, of course) and about which boys he found cute in his year and so on and so forth with his friends was amazingly liberating. It felt good that they still saw him in the same way. That he was still Charlie. They'd spent his seventeenth birthday in the common room at night, his mother and father having sent him a book on draconology, his friends a calligraphy set with quills modelled after dragons and his brothers chocolates from Zonko's. Bill had even sent him a model snitch. He'd had a great birthday, with the stress of telling his friends off his shoulders and his general positivity about telling his parents as well. 

His siblings had thankfully sat in another car, so he'd been able to talk with his friends openly as the stress stacked up. He knew that his whole family would be home from Christmas, even Bill, who had only recently started working in bloody Egypt. He was sure to brag about his tan when he came back, though they tended to go more red than tan, as a family unit. Charlie himself was a prime victim of getting burnt by the sun, the volume of freckles on his skin surpassing all his other family members. He was glad that Bill was going to be there. He voiced this thought to his friends.

"He's always been really supportive of me," Charlie said with a happy smile, reflecting back, "He's the only one I am completely not worried about, to be honest."

"What if you tell him first, then?" Rowan suggested, and Tonks agreed with her. 

"Yes, that's a good idea. If you tell Bill first you can get his support when you tell everyone else." Tonks finished for Rowan. 

Charlie considered this and then nodded, "That sounds much easier than going straight into the deep end. And we sleep in the same room anyway, so it'll be easier to get him by himself and just tell him." 

Rowan and Tonks both smiled at him, happy to see him this confident. It was a big change since he'd told them. Charlie was happy to finally be doing this, though he was sure he would get cold feet when he got closer. Which was precisely why telling Bill was a great idea. If he let Bill know Bill would be sure to urge him and Charlie would finally just do it, and then he'd come back after Christmas break and just be able to focus in his senior year without caring about petty Blake. He'd have Dumbledore's support also, if he could be honest with him. Dumbledore had voiced that last time they'd talked. 

"You can do this, Charlie." Tonks whispered in his ear when they hugged after they got off the train and Charlie met up with his siblings. He hugged her tight and whispered a thank you back, and then he told her he'd see her after Christmas break. 

He wrangled Fred, George and Percy like a bunch of sheep to get their trunks and then make their way to the platform to find their mum and dad. They'd be there with Ginny and Ron, undoubtedly. His mum liked to be early. His dad liked their mum, so he liked what they liked. And Ginny always came to the platform to greet Charlie, something that Charlie looked forward to. Ron preferred to stay home and greet them there, but he'd be damned if mum let him do that. 

They walked towards the gaggle of parents, Charlie keeping his arm around Fred, who was dragging along George, so they wouldn't run off. Percy was keeping up by himself just fine, thank god Charlie could trust him at least. Suddenly, he spotted them. Amongst the crowd of brown heads, there was that distinct red. Before Charlie could react, little Ginny had run up to him and jumped to hug him. He picked her up with a laugh and gave her a hug.

"Hiya, Ginny." He greeted as he gave her a peck on the cheek. She smiled at him.

"How was Hogwarts, Charlie!" She shouted more than asked, and Charlie laughed. 

"I'll tell you all about it at home." He said, and suddenly was swamped by Ron and his parents. His mother pulled him down to kiss his cheeks.

"Oh, Charlie, George, Fred, Percy! We missed you so much, didn't we, dear?" Molly Weasley was talking continuously at that point. Damn, Charlie had missed his parents.

"Of course we did, Molly." Charlie's father laughed, and Charlie let down Ginny, so he could reach around and hug his father, reaching up still. Honestly quite unfair, Percy was already taller than their dad and by now Bill surpassed him by a lifetime. Charlie was doomed to be the shortest. 

"Hey, dad, mum." He greeted them both and hugged his mother properly as well.

"Let's get home so you can all tell us about the beginning of your year, loves." Molly said, and the gaggle of red heads made for the exit. 

___

They took the floo home, and when they made it there they were surprised to be greeted by Bill, who was sitting in the living room. Apparently, that was as much a surprise as it was for Charlie to his parents, especially their mother, who jumped towards Bill and basically suffocated the poor bloke. 

"My goodness, Bill! What is that in your ear-" Charlie could hear the disapproval in their mother's tone. Jesus almighty, Bill had a fang earring in. He was fucked. Forget him coming out being the most shocking fact of the holidays. Bill's earring was sure to shock further. This was why Charlie loved him.

"Charlie!" Charlie had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't realised that Bill had escaped their parents' grasp and was making to greet him. 

"Bill!" he greeted back, rolling his eyes and faking exasperation, but hugging his brother tightly. The hug quickly turned into a headlock as Bill ruffled his hair. Charlie protested loudly. 

"How's the little pipsqueak, hey?" Bill asked, truly insufferable, and Charlie finally broke free from the headlock. 

"I dunno, mate, how are you?" He asked with a smirk and Bill hissed as if Charlie had thrown out a particularly cutting insult. 

Their conversation was cut short by their mother declaring that she'd cooked some brunch and that they should all wash their hands and seat themselves in the kitchen, for chrissakes. Charlie was so overwhelmed by the thought of food that he almost tripped over Bill on his way to the bathroom. 

__

The day had whizzed past faster than Charlie truly could comprehend, and the stillness in his life was completely replaced by the chaotic family life that he so well remembered and had missed. Their rooms were already made up, as per his mother, and when night-time fell after a day of talking about Hogwarts in a purely magical sense to Ron and Ginny and a purely academical sense to his parents and talking about Quidditch and Egypt with Bill, Charlie and Bill receeded back to their rooms, after everyone else. They'd helped clean up after dinner, their mother handing out high praise for it. They'd both kissed her goodnight and headed off to their room, giggling on their way up about some dumb thing, like when they'd been children. Charlie tended to miss Bill a lot now that he didn't see him that much. He'd spent all his life next to Bill, after all, and now Bill was all grown up and Charlie would soon follow him, and the thought made him sad sometimes. But it fulfilled him to be feeling like a child again with Bill, in the family home. To return to his childhood bedroom again, even though he'd only been away for a few months, and to have Bill be there as well with him. It filled him with a sense of calm, and it helped ease himself into telling Bill. 

They were lying down in their respective beds when Charlie was working up the courage to do it. He took a few deep breaths and closed his eyes, imagined Tonks' voice when she'd told him he could do this. It'd all be okay. No matter what, it'd be okay. 

"Bill?" He spoke up, evidently too quietly because his brother didn't respond. Fearing he'd fallen asleep, Charlie repeated himself louder. 

"Bill!" He said, and Bill groaned from his bed, Charlie hearing him roll over. Charlie was laying on his back, looking at the ceiling. He didn't dare peak at Bill to see how he was lying down. 

"What's up, Charlie?" Bill asked, his voice a little thick from tiredness, but not sounding annoyed. This spurred Charlie onward, and without dressing it up, he just spat it out. 

"I'm gay, Bill." Charlie said, and was surprised by his own sure tone. He listened to the crickets from outside and looked out the slanted roof window as he heard his brother shuffle in his own bed among the sheets. Bill's feet were hanging off the bottom of his bed. 

"And my name is Bill Weasley. Can I go to bed now?" Bill said, his voice sarcastic, almost a little bit annoyed at Charlie for bothering him with something so blaringly obvious, apparently. Charlie felt like laughing. 

"Uh," Charlie's brain blanked out at the blasé response, "Sure?" he said, sounding anything but.

Bill made a happy sound and yawned, turning over and settling into sleeping position. "G'night, little brother." 

Charlie smiled and felt his eyes well up from emotion, "Goodnight, Bill."

___

Charlie had gotten the most relaxing sleep he'd had ever thus far. He could only imagine how well he'd sleep after he told his parents. He'd sleep like a newborn baby. Bill's reaction had given him a sense of confidence about this. If Bill was okay with it, if Bill even knew about it (as he had hinted) then things would be okay. He had his friends, he had Bill, and what were the chances he wouldn't have the rest of his family? And outside of that, why would anything else matter. Why would Blake matter or anyone else in the school? Things were looking up for him.

There was a sense of security in his life now that he hadn't really felt since he'd realised he was gay. Every waking moment, and sometimes moments where he was not awake as well, felt like a huge burden on his shoulders. Not that this secret really inhibited him until he really desired a boyfriend, but the fact that he knew he was keeping something from the people he loved most weighed on him very heavily, something that he wasn't sure other people could understand. He'd found solace in the other gay closeted men around him, but everyone had a different experience and no one out there really had Charlie's family. No one out there knew what his family was like and what the dynamic was between them. He'd grown quite close with a few of them, but he had never found himself really connecting with someone, although he'd had plenty of people that he felt he could connect with, if given the chance. It spurred him onwards to come out, to consider it at all. By that point, there were a few kids that had come out to their parents, but no one that had come out to the school, not outside of small circles anyway. Charlie wanted to show them they could do it. Wanted to show himself he could do it. But he'd never really felt like he could actually do it until the moment that he had told Bill. And what do you know. Things were okay after all. 

He got up in the morning and hugged Bill, who was more startled than anything at the sudden show of affection but hugged him back and laughed at him a little, poking fun at how emotional Charlie seemed. Charlie laughed right back. Bill had gone downstairs first, Charlie taking longer to get ready, wearing his grey, woolly jumper and his black jeans. He tied his hair up in a little knot at the back of his head and waltzed down to the breakfast table like the most confident man on earth. 

"Morning!" he greeted the table loudly, seeing that Ron and Ginny were up but Percy and Fred and George were still getting ready. He got a cry of good-mornings back at him. 

"Morning, Charlie." His dad greeted him from the top of the table, looking at his newspaper in his hands. His mum sat him down and thrusted a plate of breakfast foods towards him, which he inhaled with worrying speed. 

Bill waggled his eyebrows at him. "You have mail, Charlie." He said, and handed Charlie an envelope, hiding the writing on it from his family. Charlie narrowed his eyes as he grabbed it and gave it a look. 

It had blocky, masculine letters on it, some that Charlie recognised from the note that he'd been sent a little while ago in school. Charlie shot Bill a questioning look, realising the letter had already been opened. 

"Did you open it?" He said, accusingly. 

"It wasn't shut properly. And I thought it was for me, anyway." Bill said, you know, like a liar. 

Charlie was far too caught up in feeling anticipation and curiosity about the letter to actually care about Bill seeing anything that was in there. Or maybe he wanted to read it to see what actually was written in there, so he could decide if he should murder Bill or not. 

"I didn't read all of it," Bill went on with a smirk, shovelling a croissant in his face. The bastard. "I just read the first paragraph." 

His eyes scanned over the letter. "There's only one paragraph, Bill."

"You're quite correct, well done for noticing that." Bill winked.

Charlie huffed. He'd read Bill's mail before when he was going out with his first girlfriend, so who was he to complain? Thankfully, his parents and siblings weren't paying attention, so he didn't have that over his head. Yet. They were bound to notice soon, so he was better to read it quickly and hide it if need be. 

 

'Dear Charlie,

I am not very good at writing, or talking, or communicating, which is pretty funny for a Hufflepuff to say, but I wanted to let you know briefly that the things that happened at school this term really got me motivated to finally do something about being in the closet. I know you didn't necessarily invite me to do it along with you, but I want you to know that I also plan to come out, like you, to my family these holidays. I didn't mean to steal your idea, I swear. Don't be mad at me. Anyway, I'm actually writing because I was hoping that maybe when we come back we could talk a bit more? Maybe go on a legitimate date, or whatever? You know, as two gay men, now out of the closet. If you want to do that, that is. I'd want to. Obviously. Which is why I'm writing this letter. I notice I'm going around in circles quite a bit so, write back? 

Say hi to your siblings for me. 

Cheers,  
Victor'

 

Charlie didn't realise he was smiling until he looked up and realised his family was looking at him in complete silence, and he wiped the dumb smile off his face. Fred, George and Percy had also come down and were sitting at the table. 

"What?" he questioned them. They all shrugged at him, and only Fred and George had the gall to answer with something witty, as always. 

"Nothing," Fred started, "Just watching you read your letter."

"From Penny." George finished for him and they both ooed like idiots. 

Charlie rolled his eyes as this seemed to spread a bit of a hushed conversation over the table. Like he was in a soap opera for god's sake. He only seemed to have the power to laugh it off, however, as his happiness left little space for him to be annoyed or even worried. 

"Penny?" His mum started, "Like that nice girl you've been friends with a while?"

"Friends is a general term." Percy said in his ever-professional tone, and Charlie wanted to do something incredibly childish, like perhaps stick his tongue out to him. 

Molly looked from Percy to Charlie in record speed, and Charlie could almost see the thoughts forming in her head. Well, might as well spit it out before she got too excited.

"No, actually, that was just a rumour," he said, a meek smile on his lips as he folded up the letter and put it in his jeans pocket, picking up his fork again, "Penny and I are just friends. This is from someone else." He was sure his face was red at the admission. 

"Well, go on, tell us! What's her name?" his mother asked as she sat down and started eating herself, his father and siblings nodding along with a slight muffled hubbub of excitement, some comments about Charlie 'finally' getting someone. 

Charlie put a bite of food in his mouth and feigned distracted by his food. He, as casually as he could with his racing heart beating wild circles in his chest, addressed them all. 

"Victor." He said simply, and then continued to chew his food. 

There was that dreaded few seconds of silence, Charlie's cutlery cluttering on the plate as he continued to eat, not making any eye contact and playing it cool while fully aware of his family's eyes on him. Bill was eating as normal, going through his own letters as if the conversation wasn't really happening. 

"Well, for god's sake, Charlie, don't talk while you're chewing. You leave for a month or so and you forget your manners completely." His mother said and went back to eating her food. "And anyway, you simply must have this boy Victor over sometime. Is he from a good family? How long have you known him?"

"Christ, Molly, they're not getting married." Arthur said casually as he went back to reading his newspaper. 

"And anyway, mum, Charlie's room is right next to ours and we don't want to hear any of that." George proclaimed loudly and Ginny feigned gagging, making Ron laugh. 

"You're telling me, I share a room with him!" Bill said, and Fred and George broke into laughter as well, cackling wildly at Charlie's expense. 

"Oh, they wouldn't be sharing a room by any means, George! We wouldn't want to put poor Victor off by exposing him to the smell of Charlie's room." Arthur joined in on the fun, making the table laugh, even Charlie and Molly, who gave a gentle slap to Arthur's arm. 

"To be fair, that's mostly Bill's fault. Specifically, Bill's feet." Charlie said, his heart airy. He couldn't stop himself from laughing, purely from the euphoria of it. And it was that easy. Moving on, toodle-oo. All this bloody stress for this. He almost felt stupid.

"I can't in good faith and spirit deny that." Bill said, not looking up from reading his mail. 

"And anyway, we're not even together or anything." Charlie said with a deep crimson blush. 

"We'll see about that." Bill got up and put his plate in the sink, his letters getting put in his pocket. "Come back next holidays and see if you can say the same."

The twins ooed again, and this time Ginny and Ron joined them, and Charlie did stick his tongue out at them. They laughed. 

Charlie laughed too. He finished his food and went upstairs, hiding out in his room so he could reply to this letter. He took Erol upstairs and let him perch on the windowsill of his room, waiting for Charlie to finish up so he could head off. 

Charlie rolled out some parchment on the desk in his and Bill's room and pulled out some ink and a quill. He considered the words that he was going to write for a second, and then he started, his loopy handwriting blossoming over the page. His heart was soaring. He could hardly believe things were going the way they were. 

 

'Dear Victor,

I would very much love to do that with you. Fancy a butterbeer at Hogsmead? I'm not a huge fan of Madam Puddifoot's, but I'll take you there if you so wish. 

I should probably let you know that Bill snatched this letter and read what you said. I'm very sorry about him. Also, about the treatment you'll undoubtedly get from my siblings. I hope that doesn't put you off. Also, about the fact that my mother is already basically planning our marriage. I should probably stop talking about this before I scare you right off. I'm sure you've noticed I'm not that good at communication either. Yippee for us. 

So, they took it well. I wish you the best of luck with your own experience, which I'm sure you'll tell me about as soon as possible. Know that you have a place here, if you need it. I don't want to toot my own horn, but when we go back and finally tell Blake to shove off, I am hoping it will trigger a gay revolution among Hogwarts' population of closeted men. And women. And others. Inclusivity is the first step to a revolution.

I feel very good and my holidays are going great. I hope yours are too. Find included some chocolates, which is the best I can currently do. I'll shout you a butterbeer later this year. 

Cheers,  
Charlie'

 

Satisfied with his work, he rolled up the letter and told Erol who to take it to. Erol flew off within a moment's notice, his dodgy flying being observed by Charlie as he flew off into the cold horizon, the sky blue and welcoming. Charlie laid his hands on the window and lay his head across them, watching the clouds for a little while. It had snowed during the night, and now the ground was covered with a thick layer of snow. But in an almost significant way, the skies this morning were clear and bright, tinging the cold of the outside with the warm sun. 

Charlie took a deep breath, smelling the grass from outside, coupled with the scent of cold that signified winter. He was seventeen and had a date and was out of the closet. How much better could things get? He was riding the high of telling his parents and family still, how they'd moved on as if it were nothing to scoff at, as if he hadn't feared that they'd kick him out immediately. His mother had instigated that, and his siblings and father had followed, and he loved them for that. He knew that things weren't exactly the same now, but they'd changed in a good way, and he knew now his siblings didn't see him negatively, like he'd worried they would. Didn't really see him in a bad light, like he'd stayed up nights on end having bad daydreams about. In the end, it was all okay. And he was so glad he could put it behind him now. 

"Oi, lover boy," Bill muttered from the door, "Are you coming downstairs for some tea or do you want mum to start yelling about how you never spend time with her anymore?" 

"Says you, Bill," Charlie scoffed at him playfully as he closed the window and moved to leave, "You're off in bloody Egypt."

"No fucking cursing!" Bill slapped him upside the head and messed up his hair.

Charlie sighed and fixed it up, pushing Bill out the door and downstairs to where his family waited for him. Now he could only hope they just wouldn't ask him anything more about Victor.  

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment if you liked ! :^D


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